


Effortless Deep.  -drowning man-

by hakuen



Category: Dir en grey
Genre: Community: last_pleasure, Ensemble - Freeform, Gen, Remix, Tribute, bandfic, gen - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2007-12-09
Updated: 2007-12-09
Packaged: 2017-10-08 16:13:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,798
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/77461
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hakuen/pseuds/hakuen
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kaoru's relationships with his band, and sometimes, his wife; and the rest of the band's relationship with Kaoru's relationships, and sometimes in particular the one with his wife.</p><p>A remix of Loftec's "Effortless Deep." and a tribute to her works and style.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Effortless Deep.  -drowning man-

**Author's Note:**

> **Dedicated with utmost admiration to Elin.**
> 
> This incorporates not only themes and modified/echoed lines from Loftec's [Effortless Deep.](http://loftec304.livejournal.com/25747.html#cutid1) and U2's [Drowning Man](http://www.megaupload.com/?d=Y1FJBHCV), but also themes, habits, notions, in-jokes, and other such wonders from several of her other works (and a few, well, other events... and... whatnot). There's a references cheatsheet of sorts [here](http://community.livejournal.com/crack_fic/7011.html). There are also a lot of general fan-knowledge things, like Toshiya's comic strips, the lyrics of a few songs, all of the time clues held in the hair colors and events mentioned and so on (I added the numbers to help with that, at least), etc.
> 
> In case it's not common knowledge anymore, James is the guitarist of Bullets and Octane, who were on the Family Values tour with Dir en grey. The video [here](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOs8_YhWizw) is a must-see. There's a few more that Bullets posted if you're interested, which include more fishing, ducks, and Die being a twit.
> 
> The numbers at each section are a time scale; it doesn't map to years, just from oldest to newest in Kaoru's life up to this point.

~*~

 

**Effortless Deep.**  
-DROWNING MAN-

 

**nine**

 

A man's laughter, deep and unrestrained, rolled across the empty live house.

"Sometimes I live on the thought that he laughs like that when we can't see."

The voice was quiet but clear, carrying over the rumble of dollies and the conversation of two roadies to reach Die's ear, hidden as it was beneath recently-lightened hair. He was still trying on not being red, it was a shock in the mirror to see that ruddy blond and not have Shinya's face underneath it.

He turned and found the voice's source. A woman who, seeing him turn, had bent abruptly to the two young boys at her side, her long dark hair falling over her face despite its fine silver clip.

He couldn't recognize her through the hair, didn't recognize the boys, but his eye caught on the hair clip; studying it for a moment, he realized that he knew who she must be.

"Ryoko. How have you been?"

Her head jerked up, whites of her eyes just visible as she took him in, then calmed, smoothed her demeanor. "Very well, Die. How is your family?"

 

**seven**

 

"Kaoru," someone called, too loudly. His ear pounded inside his head which was pounding and his eyes felt crusted shut, hopefully with nothing toxic. Strange blobs circled in his head. The shooting pains seemed to follow their pattern. He frowned.

"Grargh," he said.

The owner of the loud voice approached and poked him in the arm. "Are you okay?"

"There's... the pacman ghosts... the pacman ghosts are eating... at my brain..."

A silence ensued.

"Kyo?" another voice called, and Kaoru identified it as 'Toshiya.' It, too, approached. "So, he ended up in the bathtub this time? How bad is it?"

"The pacman ghosts are eating at his brain," Kyo informed Toshiya. "Toshiya, the pacman ghosts, they're eating at his brain, doesn't that sound bad to you?"

 

**three**

 

"What's the odds now," Toshiya drawled through smeared red lips, "five to one against you ever getting laid in your life?" He leaned in on the couch arm, leering companionably at Shinya wedged in the corner beneath his armpit, and flicked Kaoru's glass with a long fake blue nail. "I don't get you, man. You could use it more than any of us and you sit here and play Joe Cool, let Die run you straight off the field from go."

Kaoru pulled his glass away with a little smile and slid a finger up to push his sunglasses in again. "I don't want any of those girls."

Toshiya's lips pursed and his bangs fluttered as he blew a little stream of air up at them. "Well, how about the guys, then. We're all friends here, it's okay, Kaoru." Warming to his theme, he lifted off the couch arm -- Shinya's yelp as his fruity hat was knocked aside by an elbow was grandly ignored -- and plopped down practically across Kaoru's lap. "You tell ol' Uncle Totchi all about it and he'll hook you right up!"

Sensing that the stare of death would continue to lack effect, Kaoru resorted to a straight-armed shove. Toshiya slid to the carpet, still amiable.

"I am interested in women. Not girls, not guys, women."

"_Well_ then." Toshiya laid a hand over his mouth, brows arched, and turned to Shinya. They engaged in a small pantomime that greatly amused both, while Kaoru worked his way through every drink in reach.

Some time later, he broke free to find the men's, and on the way back spotted Kyo, sitting rather hunched in front of a blank television with a can of soda between his hands. He was rolling it back and forth, back and forth, staring at the tab as it spun.

Kaoru stopped beside him and watched. After a minute, he grunted.

The can halted. "You again," Kyo said without looking up.

"Miserable, isn't it."

Kyo nodded and resumed rolling the can. Kaoru sat down beside him and passed out.

 

**one**

 

A small boy with a delicate chin sat on a stone step in the garden behind his house, reading a book. Amber-colored leaves shaded his eyes from the sun; Mother had said, _It's Indian summer, it'll be cold again soon, go play,_ but he knew she was only tired of not answering questions. The garden was small but its walls were high.

He heard the piano inside. Father said something cutting every time he asked if she could teach him and she wouldn't hear about it when they were alone. It didn't matter to him if it was too late for him to be some prodigy. It made no sense.

The wind picked up. A leaf danced off the tree that hung over the wall to land on his shoe, blood-red against burnished brown leather.

The phone rang a few minutes later and he heard Mother answer. "Oh, he -- he was? Oh. How wonderful. Yes. Of course, I'm thrilled. Campaign season again soon, then. Of course, yes. I'll take our son down for a new little suit in the morning. Everything will be perfect."

She didn't say much else until Father came home the next morning.

 

**eight**

 

"All you need is a little practice. Get back in the game, you'll be fine." Die thumped his shoulder with a bracing grin and slid off for the bar, leaving Kaoru to groan and blink pitifully behind his big brown sunglasses.

"Is Die being a twit again?" Toshiya asked behind a hand a few hours later, when the rotation of far too young American ladies past Kaoru's supposed-to-be-appraising eye had continued long past any redeemable point and even Die's giggle was eliciting a kill reflex.

"He is trying," Kaoru ground out, "to be helpful."

The hand dropped. "Die! Quit being a twit, goddamn it!"

"To_tchi--_"

"I haven't seen his eye twitch like this since the Grim Reaper days!"

 

**four**

 

Kyo, wearing a manly plaid apron, gave the last two steaks a critical eye. "Good, you think?"

Shinya barely opened his eyes. "Take them off now or we'll be using them as fuel instead of food."

Kyo made a dissatisfied _tch_, but obeyed. "Kaoru! How do I turn this thing off?"

Shinya's eyes rolled open and he stared into limitless blue. "I didn't just hear that, did I? Really... I'm sitting right here, Kyo, the least you could manage when your native manliness comes up lacking is to apply to the closest resource first. This way it's implied that mine was already applied to and lacking as well, and that frankly -- "

"There's a dial on the front, it says 'OFF' at one end, Kyo, figure it out," Kaoru yelled back.

Kyo made a face, but did it. The dial was very obvious indeed and Shinya stared at him.

"I wanted to get him out here alone," Kyo hissed.

"What on earth for?"

"Die was going to try hitting on her. We had it all set up."

After that had been let to hang in the air for a good long disbelieving minute, Shinya said, "Die. Was going to try hitting on. _Kaoru's_ girlfriend, and not only that, but the only such creature that any of us have even heard of him having, let alone that he's actually brought 'round for us to meet."

"...It seemed like a good idea at the time."

Shinya's _tch_ was damning.

"Did you find it or what?" Kaoru asked from behind the screen door, a bottle of wine in one hand and an opener in the other. "What the hell, were you guys conspiring out here? Jumping like that..."

"Guilty consciences in general, I'm afraid," Kyo said lightly. "Look, what do we have to do to move this along? I'm getting nervous out here, watching those teeth on Shin get sharper with every steak I cook and he doesn't get to eat, he'll resort to cannibalism if he isn't fed soon."

"Well, ah..."

"Mmm?"

"Her parents aren't here yet," Kaoru mumbled.

Kyo blinked. Then he leaned over to Shinya. "Shin. I know I've got some wonky hearing, was that just me or -- "

"He said the P word," Shinya nodded solemnly. "Kyo... Kyo, our little boy is, well, he's growing up."

Kyo and Shinya exchanged a soulful look, then embraced, pretending to sob on each other's shoulders.

The screen door slammed behind Kaoru.

They broke apart instantly. "Kyo," Shinya ventured after a moment, "do you think that was a 'you guys are assholes but I'm amused and reluctantly a bit touched, albeit in the very back grimy corner of my shrivelled black heart' slam or a 'you guys are assholes and I am even now plotting the myriad of brilliantly painful ways in which you shall pay' slam?..."

Kyo looked at the door. He looked at Shinya.

He launched himself at Shinya's leg.

All Shinya could do for a moment was blink. Then he began screaming for Kaoru.

*

"You _what_?"

"I decided... to eat... his leg..." Kyo said calmly, pointing at himself and then at Shinya and back at himself, opened his mouth and prodded his sharp teeth. Kaoru stared at him.

An amused female voice came from inside the screen door. "At least it wasn't one of his arms. A leg, he might have a chance at still playing with a replacement."

"That's what I thought," Kyo nodded.

"Clearly someone with the best interests of the band at heart." Her laugh rang warm across the patio.

Kyo, at that point, gave his approval and considered it done.

 

**five**

 

"--and you need the day off because you have to take it to the vet. Even though you've been off most of the week and we need those lyrics."

"And I need the day off because I have to take _her_ to the vet," Kyo corrected, a bit savagely.

Kaoru leaned back in his chair and let the eyebrow speak.

"It's not like I asked for this," Kyo muttered, "that asshole left the country and she was starving, she just kept fucking yowling all night, what was I supposed to do? Sit there and go nuts from the noise until she got around to dying?"

"So now you have a pet cat." Kaoru's fingertips formed a tent to hide his smile beneath.

"Fuck you. Do I get the day off?"

*

Kyo slipped from the Hellpit, aka Kaoru's work area, and made a beeline for Die.

"Well?"

Kyo gave him a thumbs up. Die's grin could have lit a city block. Kyo took a second to recover from the shock -- sometimes you forgot, you just forgot, that was all, even working with the twit every day for almost two years as he had now -- and wandered off to find where he'd left his lyrics book.

An hour later, Die tapped the window. Kyo found him outside the back door holding an ancient-looking bicycle with a basket on the front.

"You're joking, you must be," Kyo eyed the rusty thing down, "this can't possibly hold anyone, let alone two."

"It's all we've got, unless you really want the shouting match over driving off past his window in the middle of the afternoon, and that'll put him in a foul mood for going home, and isn't that -- "

" -- working directly counter to our ideals, yes, Die," Kyo sighed, "I know it. Still doesn't mean I have to like it. D'you think we should get tetanus shots after this?"

"Not unless it gets inside your body somehow." Die raised a brow at him.

"Freak," Kyo said mildly.

"Dirty midget. C'mon." Die slung a leg over the bike and sat, beckoning Kyo up behind him. Kyo slid up gingerly and clung tight to Die's back the whole way from the studio in to a little boutique that Shinya had told them about.

Happiness is a tricky thing. Kaoru's first wedding anniversary was the next day and the consequences of his forgetting would be just as nasty for them, Kyo and Die had realized, as they would be for Kaoru. A thought to shudder at if there had ever been one.

They found a beautiful filigree hair clip that wouldn't break either of their wallets, arranged for its delivery ASAP with a dozen roses at the flower shop next door, and skedaddled back to the studio with Kaoru none the wiser.

When the phone call came from his thrilled wife, at home by doctor's order for the last month of her first pregnancy, Kaoru handled the double surprise of his anniversary being here already (it was another three months at least, wasn't it? he thought to himself in confusion) and himself having sent a lovely and thoughtful little gift in advance with unusual aplomb.

"So," Die said, having lurked in the doorway. "Since you're no doubt going to take the day to spend with your gorgeous wife, and Kyo's already got the day off for the health of his pussy..."

 

**eight**

 

Acoustic in hand, Die meandered down to the edge of the pond and found a nice sitting rock, as Toshiya looked around for wildlife to pester and James ripped the end off the case of Schlitz.

It had become their habit to scope out the new surroundings every day as a team. Die planted his bony butt and began chainsmoking; Toshiya found something local and of an animal persuasion to chase and chased it, thus taking the edge off his overall tendency before there were local human females about; James broke out the alcohol and did whatever came naturally after that.

Today, what seemed likely to come naturally was fishing. The pond was of good size, if scummy, and didn't even stink too badly.

*

"Not a damn fish in this motherfucker." James tossed his pole up the bank and flopped down on the grass beside Die. "Ugh." He leaned up to rootle around in the disaster of cardboard and more crushed than full cans that had once been a case of beer. "Hey, what happened here? I know you didn't drink all this, you lightweight pansies."

"No." Die, hands clasped over his stomach and toes bared to the breezes, slid a glance at James out of the corner of his eyes and smiled. "Girls took it. They drank - it - _allll_. Big fucking tits, you missed..." He waggled a finger, "Bad luck."

James looked at him and clearly decided to let that one go.

"I...'m telling you!" Die insisted to the clouds, his loopy grin not helping convince them any more than it did James. "They come-- came, they said they wanted best guitarist. I told them, right there... fishing..." He shrugged, demonstrating his utter helplessness, shackled to the warm grass as he was. "But no, not good enough. Die, not good enough. Kaoru, they want Kaoru, so they go look for Kaoru..." A dramatic sigh and Die flopped his hand to his forehead, grin pinned to the corners of his mouth. "Always Kaoru. Story of, of... hmm. Story of my life!"

"Yeah." James cleared his throat and cracked a beer. "So. Hey, while I'm thinking about it -- what's Kaoru's deal, anyway?" He took a long gulp, a thin stream of foam escaping the corner of his mouth.

A cicada buzzed over the bank. Reversing its path, a neat brown-speckled duck appeared, making a beeline march for the pond. Die caught Toshiya's eye and said quite clearly _no_.

"Kaoru's...deal? What is this?" Die shoved a hand into his hair and gave James his best quizzical-innocent half laugh, throwing in a pinch of self-deprecation to close the deal. "Here, you have all the beer, I need it also." He snapped his hands and beckoned.

James groaned, rolled over and snagged two. Then, grinning, he held them just out of Die's reach. "Come on, you know what I mean. His _deal_. Why's he always so... you know, _worky_ and stuff. Work, work, work, that's all you see that guy do. Easier to get a smile out of a nun's tits. I just wonder, that's all."

"Give me beer!" Die laughed and smacked at James's hands, but the other guitarist was too fast. "Fuck... fucker! Now, beer! I'll-- kill you--"

Beside them, unaffected by the tussle, Toshiya watched the duck pick its way around a deflated inner tube, then a muddy sock, and settle gracefully into the water. After a few minutes, another duck flapped down in a rush from the air and splashed its way to floating beside the first.

He nodded to himself. "That's right. S'not a pond without ducks." He watched them paddle together toward the far side of the pond until their little ducky heads disappeared in the heat haze, then flopped to his back. Feeling broody all of a sudden, he picked a long seeded stem and started chewing on it, staring at the clouds.

"Hey, doesn't that look like a... well, a deformed rabbit?" There was a cackle of laughter from a few feet away and a puzzled grunt from the non-Japanese speaker. He shifted the stem to the other side of his mouth. "I always wanted a pet rabbit," he said to nobody in particular.

 

**six**

 

"Is it so hard to love me?" he asked, and his smile was worn harsh but mischief flickered at its edges.

"No."

"No?"

"It's quite easy," her hand caressed the side of his face, his unshaven hollow cheek, and sadness shone in her eyes, "you should try it sometime."

 

**eight**

 

"Are you done with the shower yet, Die?" Kaoru called through the door.

"Not quite," came the muffled reply. Kaoru sighed.

Time passed. Kaoru read Fool's Mate and tried not to watch the clock.

The hairdryer started.

"Okay. Okay, that's it." Kaoru made his way to the bathroom door -- even when pissed as hell at Die, he was still classified as a slow-moving object according to his oh-so-beloved band -- and grabbed the handle.

What he expected was to use said handle to rattle the door, perhaps startling Die and definitely getting the idea across that Kaoru wanted him to hurry the fuck up. What he did not expect was for the handle to be unlocked, and to turn.

A very surprised, very naked, and very not red-haired Die, one hand on the hairdryer and the other in his hair, made shocked eye contact with Kaoru.

"...You were in here all this time fucking _dyeing your hair_?" was all Kaoru could muster as he backed away, hands rising to guard his eyes.

"I was afraid I would lose the courage if I waited?..." Die pulled the door shut, his voice growing shaky.

"You couldn't wait and get someone who actually does this professionally to do it? Like we always do? Like we _have_ to do?"

The door opened again and Die emerged, a towel tucked around his hips and hands full of his shower things. "I'm done. Your turn."

"Are you going to answer me?"

"Nothing to say, old man." Die pushed open the hotel room door, almost running into Toshiya.

"If you go after him, I'm getting in that shower," Toshiya said.

Kaoru wondered when he'd lost his touch.

"Clearly not a natural blond," Toshiya called out the door after Die as a gust of wind flipped his towel up.

"Fuck off," Die growled.

The door closed, Toshiya regarded Kaoru. "You look like you need a hug. Do you need a hug?"

 

**nine**

 

"Where's Die when you need him?" Kyo muttered, surrounded on all sides by a mountain of gear stenciled DIR EN GREY. "This is what he's for, isn't it? Carrying all this crap for us?"

"Sure," Shinya said, not looking up from his magazine. "I shall summon him directly."

"You do that." Kyo looked around, searching for something to occupy himself with that didn't involve destruction and probable legal trouble. He did pride himself on how he'd matured over the last few years.

A pair of high voices echoed down the concrete hall. Kyo looked up and blinked. "Isn't that," he murmured, prodding Shinya with a toe.

Shinya surveyed things and said, "Yup," going back to his magazine.

"You know what," Kyo said after the woman and her two small boys had turned down a side hall that led back to the front doors, "I'm still pissed about that. I really am. I honestly thought they'd make it. I thought, you know what, here's a bright, interesting, and damn hot woman, and she's all kinds of over the moon for our Kaoru, and there's just no way this could go wrong." He kicked at some tape stuck on the ground, scuffing his shoe. "No way. Life's just not that fucked up. Hand the guy something good in his personal life for once, and..."

"Yeah." Shinya turned the page.

"I thought, those two, you know what, they're like lobsters... bloody lobsters walking the bottom of the seas forever together..."

"Yeah."

 

**zero**

 

"Well," Kaoru said.

"Well." She smiled at him, eye to eye like always. He breathed in the scent of her perfume, warmed and carried close as an aura around her body, and leaned in on reflex before he thought to stop himself.

She allowed the kiss, returned it, even. Then she laid a gentle hand to his chest and stepped away.

"I felt like I hardly knew you, but there's nothing left to ask when I think of it now. No secrets that weren't just..." She tilted her head, took a breath. "Do you think it's too late?"

The hope climbing along his spine suddenly multiplied through his chest and up his throat and head like bubbles. From the deep dark, to the light surface...

"Do you know what you want?"

_I really just wanted you to stay with me._

He stepped forward. "You. Just you. However you'll take me."

 

**five**

 

"Seven strings?" Ryoko murmured sleepily, turning her head in the hollow of his shoulder to get away from the strand of purple hair that tickled her nose. "Oh, men always will find a way..."

"Hmm?" He flipped to the next page of the packet from ESP, outlining the proposed models for his own signature series, and tried not to shiver in delight again at those words passing through his mind. His cheeks were sore from wearing a shit-eating grin all day as it was. "Go to sleep, baby. Thought you had that thesis... thing... tomorrow."

"That was today," he felt a mostly-playful poke in the vicinity of his hip and suppressed a reflexive hunch, "and I think I did pretty well, actually, thank you for asking."

Apologies pouring from his lips, he slid the packet aside (not without a last longing gaze at the glossy sheet of picks emblazoned with JAPANESE ZOMBIE HEROEZ) and set about keeping her awake in the best possible way.

 

**zero**

 

_the silent charred ground into which the beauty sank and grew stronger_


End file.
